Well, I for one am extremely excited to go! I live in beautiful California right now, and I'm soaking it all up while I'm here just in case I get the chance to move to Mars. And I'm sure that the percentage of the population who'd want to go is small - but it's big enough to start a colony, that's for sure.
I wonder how long it would take for you to realize you really miss Earth?
Knowing you'll be confined to a closed space for years (assuming no return capabilities on the initial mission), even the awesome research you'd be doing will probably start to look very bleak.
I'm sure I will miss Earth before we even leave Earth orbit! But that won't make me want to go to Mars any less.
> Just send robots and control them from Earth...
This idea makes me feel isolated and sad. What a dystopian future that would be, with everybody sitting on a single planet at risk of disease, nuclear war, asteroid impacts, global-scale climate change, all without a care, while you look into your VR headset and see the realistic landscapes of other planets. So sad :(
I'll take Mars any day over that. And I'm also confident that return trips will be frequent if anyone wants to leave - that's the whole point of reusable rockets, afterall.
I cannot tell if you are serious, or seriously trolling.
>What a dystopian future that would be, with everybody sitting on a single planet at risk of disease, nuclear war, asteroid impacts, global-scale climate change, all without a care, while you look into your VR headset and see the realistic landscapes of other planets.
Have you done any reading on the habitability of Mars? I will guarantee that once you truly comprehend what life on Mars will entail, you will be BEGGING for the luxuries of disease, nuclear war, climate change, and all the other great things that life on Earth bring.
Mars is a brutal, senseless struggle against a guaranteed DEATH.
I recommend going to live in Antartica first, and see how long you can last there. Followed by building a capsule on top of Everest. Then by living in the ISS. Then by living on the Moon. ONLY THEN, would you have any idea of what Mars living will be like.
But alas, even then it will be far, FAR more challenging than living on the Moon. The transit time between the Earth and the Moon is childish compared to Earth and Mars. Once you're on Mars, there will be no coming back for a LONG time.
How is living on Mars significantly harsher than the ISS?
You would get resupply missions once every 2 years [0] instead of 10 times a year, but in general they share most of the downsides but Mars has soil, gravity and an atmosphere.
When things go south on the ISS, you are a four hour flight away from Kazakhstan.
When things go south on Mars, you die.
Supporting the survival of six people on the ISS also costs billions of dollars a year. Even if you cut launch costs by a factor of 10, it's still going to be north of a billion dollars. Supporting the survival of a viable colony on Mars would bankrupt the world twice over.
The initial investment would be significant yes, but Mars isn't anywhere near as space constrained as much as the ISS.
Once you've got enough people and supplies, you can build farms, which means less food needs to be shipped out, freeing capacity for other goods. Presumably a lot of the infrastructure will be shipped out long before people are, so all they need to do is collect things from the supply drops, then assemble and expand.
Get the Mars colony to self sufficiency and the cost to Earth will trend to zero.
You're crazy man! Also, while that percentage is extremely small, the percentage that actually will qualify has to be insanely small. I'm sure everyone headed there is going to be subjected to rigorous testing, they aren't just going to ship off anyone.
